Homeopathic Materia Medica by Farrington

THE NOBLE METALS

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In this group we have AURUMMETALLICUM, AURUMMURIATICUM, ARGENTUMMETALLICUM, ARGENTUMNITRICUM, PLATINUM, and PALLADIUM. There are, also, two or three others of which we know but little.

Aurum and Argentum have many symptoms in common, and yet their distinctive characteristics are sufficient to enable you to separate them readily in practice. I will give you the general distinctions between the two drugs before I consider them individually. Gold affects more the circulation of the blood. It also acts on the mind, producing emotional symptoms. Now, by this I mean that if you find symptoms of the nervous system in Aurum, they will be followed by symptoms of the circulation as the primary or most important quality. Argentum has more symptoms of the respiratory organs and intellectual part of the mind. With Aurum, we have tendency to hyperaemia; in Argentum more nervous phenomena; only, Aurum seems to attack the bones. We find very few symptoms of Argentum indicating it in bone affections. The latter, however, causes an arthralgia, or neuralgic pains in the joints. It also attacks the cartilages of joints. For instance, you find Argentum metallioum useful in the arthralgia pains of women who suffer from prolapsus uteri. They can scarcely move their joints, and yet a most careful investigation shows no rheumatic inflammation.

Aurum suits in scrofula with redness of the face, thus keeping up the tendency to hyperemia or fulness of the bloodvessels. In these scrofulous cases, you will find that the opacities and ulcers on the cornea are"surrounded by well-filled bloodvessels; here again the hyper-aemic quality of the drug is well brought out.

Argentum suits in chlorosis. It affects the oxidizing power of the blood ; it shrivels the body. Aurum affects the distribution of the blood, giving us fulness or hyperaemia, whereas Argentum affects its quality, rendering it incapable of fully carrying oxygen. Hence all parts of the body become dwindled from malnutrition.

Silver, and especially its nitrate, coagulates albumen, and this is the reason why the latter has been used locally for so many years as a caustic. When applied with moisture to animal tissues, it immediately coagulates the albuminous portions, and so tends to destroy whatever process is going on. Its action does not extend deeply, however, on account of the formation of this layer of coagulated albumen.

Argentum Nitricum more than the metal itself, causes gastro-enteric inflammation, very much like Arsenic. In poisoning cases it also, seems to affect the epithelial layers. For instance, when animals that have been fed on it for quite awhile die, the epithelial layers in all parts of the body seem to be more or less destroyed. That is the reason why you find it of use in cancer and in haemorrhages, in both of which conditions the epithelial structures are diseased.